Archive for the ‘London’ category

A man has been ejected from the House of Commons after allegedly throwing a bag of what were allegedly marbles and ranting during Prime Minister’s Questions. The only thing more incoherent than his protest has been the reporting of the incident.

Important facts about the altercation reported by The Telegraph include that the man was dressed casually, that the man was wearing a massive coat, that it was ‘over the NHS thing’, and that the man had eyes that are different colours. (Perhaps he had marbles instead of eyes?) All valuable facts, but somehow it doesn’t manage to explicitly mention that the marbles didn’t (and couldn’t) reach the MPs below despite reportedly being ‘hurled’ at them.

I said ‘the marbles arced’ -Ed

On a page which features the word ‘marbles’ no fewer than seventeen times, eyewitnesses were queueing up to provide their marbled testimony, and editors at The Telegraph were very keen to let them speak in full, with no editing, in spite of possible repetition of the point they were making, or saying the same thing over and over, about marbles. Marbles.

This witness was so shocked as to provide a quote which answers his own question before asking it:

I don’t know how he got in because he had a big green coat on so he has obviously hidden it in there. How has he got in with a bag of marbles?

Other witnesses also wanted to say ‘shock’, as well as saying ‘marbles’:

It was dead silent, everyone was in shock – a bit shocked that this man had got up and thrown some marbles. It was immediately obvious it was marbles, a big bag of them and they went everywhere.

Four points to this quotee for a quote with a full quota of marble shock.

It was shocking at the time because you wonder how he got it in with a bag of marbles.

Presumably with hindsight the marble-smuggling is less remarkable?

It was a bag about the size of an A4 sheet, full of marbles. There were people around picking them up and the official picking them up. It was quite a shock.

Post-traumatic stress from marble collection. This person is not destined for any sort of work involving filing or cleaning, or active military service.

Most unbelievably, witnesses report that a £1.4m security screen, designed to protect MPs from like terrorism and stuff, was damaged in the incident. Presumably it had been designed for the last war, namely a condom full of purple flour lobbed at ex-PM Tony Blair in 2004. It just wasn’t ready for an A4 bag of children’s playthings, just like reporters at The Telegraph.

Marbles.

Written by Tom and Statto

October 23, 2014 at 09:41

It’s the end of another workday and, slightly grumpy as you jump on the Tube, you grab one of those free papers to pass the time before you die. And Heaven forfend that they make that time more enjoyable. Instead, inducing your ire, poking the hornets’ nest of delayed commuters with some cheap red-signal-to-a-bull commuter-bait, tonight’s Evening Standard screams:

TfL are sitting on fifty three million pounds of our money? What are they doing with it all? Certainly not making this bloody Tube carriage any less crowded, that’s for sure. That’s about the cost of a Zones 1–6 Travelcard isn’t it?! TfL? Transport for London? Train’s full and Late, more like. I could make dad jokes like this all day about bloody City Hall bureaucrats.

But wait…

TfL said 19,790,130 cards which have not been used for a year or more represent a value of £52,914,424.

Hang on. £50m on twenty million Oyster cards is only just over £2.50 each. Er. I’m less angry now. Good job that context-setting statistic is prominently displ…oh. It’s actually on this well-hidden news satire blog I just clicked through to.

If the world isn’t my oyster, it’s not because of crippling credit card debt from the unspent e-shrapnel on the five forgotten Oyster cards loitering around my home. It’s because everything makes me so mad! Especially big numbers in headlines! Rargh!